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Coffee shops realised they could do brisker business by having punters tap their bank cards instead of shuffling bits of metal.

From: Why Europe is rediscovering the virtues of cash.

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In Europe, regulators were worried about the cost of interchange to businesses (rather than consumers) and capped it. Since issuers didn’t have the margin to compete on rewards paid for by interchange, they instead leaned into branding and convenience, and credit cards became a smaller portion of the payment mix (about 47% of electronic payments, compared to almost 70% in the U.S.).

From: How credit cards make money.

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A crypto holder lost over $282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin on January 10 in what blockchain investigator ZachXBT described as a hardware wallet social engineering scam, marking the largest individual crypto theft of 2026 so far.

It in infact surpassed the previous notable social engineering hack record of $243 million set in August 2024.

The latest attacker immediately began converting the stolen assets into Monero through multiple instant exchanges, causing XMR’s price to spike sharply.

Bitcoin was also bridged to Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin via Thorchain as the perpetrator worked to obscure the funds’ trail across multiple blockchain networks.

From: Victim Loses $282M in Bitcoin and Litecoin to Hardware Wallet Scam.

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Ruling against Lin, Mr Justice Cawson said: “WhatsApp messaging is now a well-established method of sending encrypted messages linked to the telephone numbers of mobile phones using the WhatsApp ‘app’ downloadable to mobile phones.

• Why financial settlement after divorce is still a mess

“I consider that the header within a WhatsApp ‘chat’ identifying the sender is analogous to the email address that is added by the relevant service provider to the top of an email, utilising the sender’s email address.

“It is not, as I see it, part of the actual message itself, but merely provides a mechanism designed by the relevant service provider to allow the sender of the email or WhatsApp message to be identified.

“It is, I consider, therefore, properly to be regarded as incidental to the message itself, rather than as forming part thereof.”

From: WhatsApp texts are not contracts, judge rules in £1.5m divorce row.

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WhatsApp texts are not contracts, judge rules in £1.5m divorce row
Artist fails in her High Court attempt to keep her north London house after messages with her ex-husband were deemed not to constitute signed documents

From: WhatsApp texts are not contracts, judge rules in £1.5m divorce row.

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The cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will cost an estimated £1.9bn and be the most economically damaging cyber event in UK history, according to researchers.

From: JLR hack ‘is costliest cyber attack in UK history’, experts say – BBC News.

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In essence, a memecoin is a way to turn fame into money directly.

From: Crypto Is the Perfect Currency for Trump’s Corrupt Pay-to-Play Presidency.

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The cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will cost an estimated £1.9bn and be the most economically damaging cyber event in UK history, according to researchers.

From: JLR hack ‘is costliest cyber attack in UK history’, experts say – BBC News.

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Some fret that too much digital payment leaves Europe dependent on the likes of Visa and MasterCard, American firms with unpredictable political masters.

From: Why Europe is rediscovering the virtues of cash.

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Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the same thing to CNN, criticized credit card rewards programs saying they mainly benefit wealthier consumers while lower-income borrowers bear more of the costs. In fact, as he went on to point out, even people who do not use credit cards pay more for everyday goods because merchants raise prices to cover card fees.